Finland, Germany, and Onwards

One day to go before leaving for Ecuador. I spent a very relaxing couple of weeks in Finland with Eero and Jenni. We took a weekend boat trip to Stockholm a week ago. One night on a cruise there, a day in Stockholm, and one night back. It's a beautiful city, much more picturesque than I had imagined. There's an old section, on an island in the river that runs through the city, that has narrow streets and buildings that look like Italy. The rest of the city had beautiful stone buildings and shopping streets. I only saw a small part of it but it struck me as very nice place to live.

I arrived in Germany a few days ago to meet up with Anne. We're currently in Heidelberg (another gorgeous city - I think I need a job that shifts me to a new city every year, so many great places to live!) visiting André and his girlfriend Katrin. Tomorrow morning we catch flights to Quito. Original plan was to go to language school in Quito but we got lots of recommendations to go to Cuenca instead. We now are booked into a hostel for our first days in Quito, and have enrolled in a language school for four weeks in Cuenca beginning on the 4th of October. The bus ride from Quito to Cuenca is about 10 hours, which I imagine will be tiring but will let us see lots of the countryside. We'll need a couple days to acclimatise to Quito's ~3000 meter elevation, then we'll see what the area has to offer. Will probaby take the bus to Cuenca a couple days before beginning the course.

It's strange to be sitting in familiar surroundings, knowing that a day from now I'll be in a completely new place far from here. I've had the idea of this trip for so long that it's odd to think tomorrow it actually begins.

Tubing

Have been spending a relaxed weekend in Hanko, a town an hour or so outside Helsinki where many people have summer homes. Although it's getting a bit late in the year, the Finnish summer was apparently unusually hot so it's still relatively warm.

Went out yesterday with Eero & Jenni on Eero's motorboat, towing an innertube behind us. My memory of this from last year involved choppy waters, hanging onto the tube for dear life as it swept in a wide arc when the boat turned, and getting thrown off after hitting waves which tossed the tube a few feet in the air. Great fun. This year we went on a day without much wind so the ride was smoother. The water was also colder, but it was worth braving it.